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Thales awarded NEF ‘Investor in Innovations’ Accreditation

Taking place at the Institute of Directors, Alvin Wilby – Vice-President, Research Technology and Innovation at Thales in the UK, received the accreditation from Sa’ad Medhat, Chief Executive Professor of the NEF.   

The Research Technology and Innovation team in the UK aims to identify and exploit a broad range and scope of innovation across its UK businesses to drive profitable and sustainable growth, whilst maximizing customer/stakeholder benefits. The team facilitates a range of partnerships that include industry, academia & SME’s, together with sources of innovation and the ability to understand emerging technologies.
The Investor in Innovations accreditation process benchmarked Thales’s approach against its competitors and industry leaders, resulting in an action plan that will drive the innovation strategy, support continuous improvement and demonstrate value from innovation investments.

"This is a great achievement for the UK RTI community and demonstrates our class leading innovation capability.  As we continue to drive innovation at the heart of  our strategy, we  will continue to see benefit to the business; developing partnerships, increasing the rate of new ideas, the adoption of new thinking, approaches and technologies -  these will deliver future growth, increase profitability and boost our market share.”
Alvin Wilby, VP Research and Technology UK

As part of the assessment over the past few months, the RTI team in the UK was evaluated against six key criteria1. The assessing NEF panel commented that; “Thales’s RTI team in the UK has demonstrated a clear capability to stimulate and deliver innovation practice across the overall innovation value chain to enable business growth acceleration”.
The accreditation award will be followed by a robust action plan, jointly agreed upon by Thales and NEF, to extend its successful accreditation beyond its research, technology and innovation community into its wider business.  This will ensure innovation remains central to the Thales value proposition and for the company to continue to be the desired innovation partner for critical business challenges.

Notes to editors
Assessment Criteria

  • Strategy and Alignment
  • Organisational Readiness
  • Core Capabilities and Technologies
  • Industry Foresight
  • Client Awareness
  • Impact and Value
 
About Thales
Thales is a global technology leader for the Aerospace, Transport, Defence and Security markets. With 61,000 employees in 56 countries, Thales reported sales of €13 billion in 2014. With over 20,000 engineers and researchers, Thales has a unique capability to design and deploy equipment, systems and services to meet the most complex security requirements. Its unique international footprint allows it to work closely with its customers all over the world.